Yes, here we are once again…trying to put on a happy face. Tomorrow is my 40th birthday, and although I could care less about the fact of “40”, the birthday itself is hard. Not the 40 part, just the birthday. Four years ago I spent my birthday in the emergency room at MD Anderson, then in the outpatient surgery center, and as a celebration of the…
widowed by cancer
When Is He Coming Home?
I want to write away the pain. Sometimes I think that’s why I write. I know that’s why I talk to people, why I spend the energy to explain to them what this process is like. The more I talk the more distance I have from the process. The more distance I have from the process the less like mine it feels. Or the more sense I can try to make of…
Lordy look who’s 40….
Next week is my 40th, hard to believe really. Forty has an odd significance for me. I met my husband when I was 16. When he proposed to me at 22 (we reunited after a couple of years of not seeing each other in college), I remember him telling me I was beautiful….BUT….. Beautiful but what?? “Beautiful”, he said, “but I know you’ll be stunning…
8 Strangers
Peace comes tonight in the form of 8 strangers. Mexican and Jewish, white and other, one young with child on the way, one older with a young child, spiritual, long haired, outgoing and quiet, well dressed and unclipped toe nails.We are strangers. We come together and shut the door, shut the unclear, confusing and sometimes mean world on the other…
The Gifts of Widowhood: Me
A friend of mine shared this picture with me earlier this week, and it made me laugh out loud. I’ve been told I’m pretty good at this particular skill. As an only child for the first ten years of my life, I was a pleaser. I didn’t like to rock the boat and went to great lengths to avoid conflict. Don’t get me wrong, I still wanted to get my way. I…
You Don’t Look Like a Widow….
I’ve heard that statement countless times in the past almost 4 years. I wondered early on, “what do widows look like then?” I knew what I thought they looked like before: old, black dress, and so very sad and lonely. Well, I had the sad and lonely part down pat. Old and a black dress? Not so much.At conference this year, I got a good glimpse of…
No fixing.
School is in session! I have looked forward to this day for over two months. Not because I want Anneke gone, because I don’t, but because with the house empty of daughter and S.O. I get to write without distraction.This past weekend, Labor Day Weekend, I really labored. I cleaned the house, washed the floors, weeded the garden, did three loads of…
Can She Fix It? Yes, She Can!
This is a picture of Grayson and I waiting for Amtrak to take us to Disneyland almost 4 years ago. If you look closely, you can see Daniel’s reflection in the glass behind us. He’s taking the picture. I didn’t realize until he was already gone that his reflection was captured in the photo, and he looks for all the world like a ghost, sort of…
Woman’s Intuition
Here in the North East, most public schools began their fall sessions this week. My sister, a first grade teacher, told me in an email that never in her life had she heard so much crying, five and six year olds being asked to leave their parents, many for the first time. According to my sister, “The sound of sobbing was everywhere.” I thought…
Stay by you, when it don’t come easy.
During Daniel’s last few months and during the peak of his illness, he told me that a song he’d heard made him think of me, and of us, and the crap we were going through. At the time, the song made me cry and think of all of the ways we supported each other and how scary it all was. Now, the song makes me think of him, it still makes me cry, and it…
Not Quite Good Enough
Ah yes, the List of Requirements…it sounds so very like something out of Hogwarts, and in fact the original list Michele described yesterday was crafted by a couple of witches for certain! I do have to admit to a sense of shame after reviewing the first list, were we really so shallow? No, we weren’t. But the first list was written as a…
Slower than Molasses
I have learned, when Anneke travels, to relax a bit. I only seem to get anxious and hyper the day she returns. While she is gone, I am resigned to the fact that she is there, and I am here and I might as well just chill. Since I have no choice.But the morning of the day she is to come home, I am high strung and anxious, and a pain to be around I am…